


My invisible hands are not at play

by gloss



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-10
Updated: 2007-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:06:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You try to fly, but you cannot fly/You try to hide, but I'm by your side/You run from me, run from me, run from me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	My invisible hands are not at play

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes on setting:** In SUPERGIRL #2, Kara goes to Smallville to bug Kon. This is after "Insiders", so Kon is hiding out there in his civilian identity. Then the Titans show up, because they (Tim?) keep tabs on the Kent farm, and there's a big misunderstanding and it's all very sad and wrenching. From what I can tell, canonically this is the first time that the Titans have seen Kon since the whole red-eyed, bald-headed, minion-of-Luthor thing went down. I don't recommend the issue, which is enjoyable only for the sight of Kon with bare feet and Bart and Tim bickering like old-marrieds. But anyway. Right. This fic starts after the big fight.  
>  **Notes on sources/dedication:** Title and summary from Crime  & The City Solution, "The Adversary" ([lyrics](http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/untiltheendoftheworld/theadversary.htm)). This is for Sockich, with great gratitude for all her generosity.

The sky out here, vast and *dark*, always comes as a shock. Even during the brief time he lived in Keystone, Tim found it difficult to accept that Kansas nights could be just this empty. It makes him think about the environment's effects on psychology, on personality. This overturned bowl of still black studded with bright, wavering stars might be a key to Superman's innate calm and cheer, just as Gotham's glaring smog could explain a great deal about Batman's uneasy gloom.

Tim has always preferred nurture to nature, choice to determinism, environment to heredity.

Like Dick, he would never have been Robin if he hadn't seen the Graysons fall. If he'd grown up here, he *certainly* wouldn't have acquired the necessary mindset to be who he is today. He would be too easily awed, happily so; familiar with majesty, he would be innocent of corruption and doubt.

While the rest of the team takes their leave, he keeps his back turned and head tilted back, taking in the sky. Kory wrapped her arm around a protesting Supergirl and zoomed off first, followed by Gar, Raven and Cassie in the jet after Vic had made his apologies to the Kents.

There's something almost desperately *impressive* about this sky. It chills Tim far more than the sharp night air. Against *that*, he has his autumn-weight suit and the familiar wrap of his cape.

He is considering making the call for pick-up when a stiff breeze from southwest -- from the Kent's house -- rocks him back onto his heels. Tim closes his eyes briefly and adjusts his balance before he says, "Hi, Bart."

"Hey!" Bart bounces his shoulder off Tim's own. "How'd you know it was me?"

"The odds of it being Wally or Jay Garrick were fairly low," Tim says as he drops to a crouch.

Bart follows immediately, left leg splayed out, right knee pulled up to his chin. He nods quickly and grins again. "Good point. Still, I should probably work on my stealth."

"You might want to consider not *running* while you do that."

"True," Bart says, softly. Tim suspects that Bart is looking at him -- eyes wide, made starker by his costume's cut-outs -- but he doesn't check.

Instead, he glances up at the sky again, oddly relieved that some clouds are moving in from the north, dimming the spectacle.

They sit in silence for a while -- the silence is, of course, relative, as it always is when Bart's around, as it used to be around Kon, too. Tim folds his arms across his chest, right over left, and waits.

After scuffing his toe in the grass, rocking from side to side, fingercombing his hair in various directions, humming snatches from both the current Top 40 *and* the Talking Heads' first album, Bart huffs out a sigh, "So. K--. He looked good."

Tim knew the quiet could not last long. "Mm."

"Healthy, I mean."

"I suppose."

As he gestures, Bart's elbow catches Tim in the ribs, then the shoulder. "So weird, though! Seeing him again, seeing him *mad* again, you know? Hoo-boy."

Kon wasn't mad tonight; Tim has seen him mad, just as Bart has. Tim presses the comm on the side of his mask. "I'm calling for a pick-up. You want me to drop you in Keystone?"

"I'm good, thanks anyway." Bart unzips his jersey halfway and pushes back his cowl. His cheeks are flushed, as is his chest, sprayed with goosebumps. Tim switches off the comm. "Cold out here, huh?"

"Your metabolism functions at 3500% of basic human capacity," Tim says as Bart rubs his arms dramatically and chatters his teeth.

"So? And how do you *know* that?"

"So you can't get cold." Tim swallows, once, as Bart's movements tug the zip on his jersey farther down, exposing more skin. "And it's my job to know."

Bart frowns outrageously. "You're a *spy*, too?"

"What? No."

The punch to Tim's upper arm comes at speed, and he reels. "I'm kidding! Jeez."

"Ah." Tim rolls his left shoulder, closing his cape over his arms.

"But I *am* cold," Bart adds. Insists. There's a stripe of sweat drying across his cheekbones, dimming a little as Tim looks at him.

"Okay."

"And you're being weird."

Tim laughs briefly. "And that's new?"

That's how it has always been -- Tim is weird, Bart is, however unfortunate the choice of word, impulsive, and Kon is -- was -- loud. Somehow, for a long time, it had worked fairly well.

Bart rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean." He shivers again, and Tim reaches over to zip up his jersey, fingers grazing Bart's clammy skin. "It's about Kon, isn't it?"

Tim's fingertips skate over the sweat beneath Bart's collarbone, then up into the hollow of skin above the bone. They curl, grasp, and Bart gasps.

He's always surprised. Whenever this happens, Bart is surprised, mouth falling open into an *O*, eyes going even rounder. There have been times, when Bart was naked and leaning against Tim as Tim slowly came back to himself, that he's kissed Bart again -- and Bart still seemed surprised.

Still breathed that shock against Tim's mouth, like he's doing now, grabbed at Tim's neck and arm with small, quick hands, and pulled him in close. Like Tim was about to fly away and had to be restrained.

Like Tim *could* fly.

"Yay," Bart whispers against Tim's cheek as he gets up on one knee and moves Tim around, as his hands push under the cape, up over the bare skin on Tim's arms.

Once surprised, Bart tends to move decisively, assuredly, angling his head and butting forward, patting Tim's thigh and rocking against him, sucking on his lower lip until Tim's head tilts back and they're really kissing.

It is odd, Tim supposes, that he tends to -- acquiesce like this. It might be habit, though if it is, then that means he'll need to think about -- other partners. He prefers, instead, to clasp his hand around the back of Bart's neck, thumb working wide arcs in the sweaty down there, and kiss back.

Bart murmurs and squeaks, vibrates his mouth against Tim's lips, around his tongue, and fairly soon -- never, *quite*, soon enough -- Tim is, he believes, simply feeling. The buzz of the kiss that flows like television static, thick and variable, down his chest, into his groin; the heat of Bart's narrow body wrapped around his own, moving and jerking, *grinding*; the anti-intellectual hum of arousal, following its own patterns, its predictable trajectory.

"Shouldn't we --?" Bart glances around, breathes heavily through his mouth, clutching at Tim's thigh. "Somewhere, um. Somewhere else?" He shudders when Tim dips his head and moves his mouth over his chest, finding a nipple. "*Ow*, uh --"

"After," Tim says, and then hears the last part. He squints, pushes Bart's jersey back and down his arms, and sees the pink skin of Bart's nipple. Pinker, paler, than normal. He flicks his tongue around it and Bart *shakes*. "What's wrong?"

"For--forgot the --" Bart's head falls back and his hips move in jerky circles, glancing across Tim's other hand, his own groin. "My undershirt."

So he rubbed himself slightly raw. "Ow," Tim agrees, soothing his hand up Bart's back.

"Yeah." Bart pulls at Tim's hair as he rises up, curling slightly around, over, Tim. "Um. Shouldn't we -- not here?"

"In a minute," Tim replies and skins Bart's tights down to his knees. Bart groans and falls back, hands reaching for, grazing, Tim's head, shoulders, cheek. Tim's mouth is -- is *watering*, his breathing coming quick and shallow through his nose. Bart yanks him close again. Pulls Tim's face to his belly, presses up to meet him, his dick brushing Tim's cheek.

"Jeez, *Rob*, I --" Bart thrashes a little before settling back down. Still panting with shock and, Tim knows, need. Excited like this, Bart tends to slip back into the old names, into long-gone rhythms, calling Tim "Rob" and --.

He goes perfectly still, breathless, when Tim runs his tongue down the crease of his thigh, tugging at the pubic hair with his lips as he wraps his right hand around the base of Bart's dick. At the first short, broad lick, Bart bucks and digs his fingernails into Tim's scalp.

"You're really good at that!" Bart had exclaimed the first time Tim went down on him. "Oh, my *God*."

Tim neglected to inquire just what Bart's criteria were, how large his comparative sample might have been; instead, he licked the last drops off his upper lip and nodded.

Like Bart, Tim is quite conversant with just how much one could learn from books.

He has refined his technique since then, with fairly good results. What is unexpected, however, is how much pleasure he derives from this -- from the *weight* of Bart inside his mouth, the jittering motion combined with the long, smooth slide down his tongue, the heat against his palate and cheeks, the yearning tickle at the back of his throat.

He grips the top of Bart's left thigh with one hand while he rubs the knuckles of the other over Bart's tightening balls, then back, up behind and down. He is as hard as Bart, trapped in his jock, and he cranes farther forward, pressing his torso against his erection, grinding against himself.

Bart's legs are tense, locked as his hips switch and rise. His hand is gripping, releasing, grabbing again at Tim's hair.

Everything is simple, *comprehensible*, down here. Reduced to sensation and friction, to taste and texture and unedited need. Clean, sharp sweat and rough hair, smooth skin over long muscles, nothing all that complicated. Bart's body wants to come; Tim wants him to. Simple.

The noises that Bart makes, the bitten-off squeals and Interlac curses, rise up into the empty sky, break and double around them.

If Kon could hear -- of course Kon can hear them. Most of Superman's powers have manifested; Vic's armor bore the burns from the laser-vision for a good week after the fight.

Long-distance hearing is a *minor* power compared to the others. Kon can, probably *does*, hear them. Tim hears himself groan, swirls saliva around the edge of Bart's cockhead and the lip of his drawn-back foreskin. Bart's stomach is tightening, going even more planar than usual. He's getting very close, so Tim sucks harder, swallowing and tightening.

Bart pants, repeats "Rob", and bucks as he starts to shoot.

As he comes down, Bart's hand gentles in the back of Tim's hair, thumb playing with the edge of Tim's mask. Tim swallows and swallows again, nuzzling. Finally, head swimming, Tim sits back on his heels.

Bart's eyes are drifting closed, a smile moving slowly as a cloud across his face. "Heee," he drawls, fumbling to pull up his tights. "You *rock*."

"Hardly." Tim extracts a handwipe from his belt and wipes off his face. "But thanks."

Bart has a pianist's hands, long fingers thin as the rest of him, and as they graze Tim's knee, reach farther, Bart grins. "Let me --"

"Later." Tim rises to his feet and discards the wipe in another pocket on his belt. Not enough time has passed for the sky to be lightening, but he can make out the small shape of the Kent's house.

"Later, later," Bart parrots and tosses his arm around Tim. He kisses Tim, mouth already open, and bunches the cape in his hands. "You're always --"

"Do you think you could run me home -- back?" Tim loosens one of Bart's fists from the cape and steps back.

Still grinning, Bart grabs him, lifts him up in what Tim can only describe as a bride-crossing-the-threshold move, and starts to run. "I've got a better idea!" he shouts as he reaches full-speed. Tim shields his face against Bart's neck. They are heading west, not east, and he has a fairly strong hunch as to what Bart's idea entails.

When Bart skids to a stop, the speed dropping away like an iceberg shearing suddenly from a glacier, Tim has to swallow the urge to retch. When he opens his eyes, as Bart sets him down, he finds that they're on a residential street, lined with neat bungalows.

"You can stay over!" Bart grabs Tim's elbow and hauls him up the steps to the front door and inside. "The Garricks are visiting -- somebody, I forget who, but they needed a break, apparently, so they're away and I'm not allowed to have any parties, like I would *anyway*, the kids here have weird ideas about what a party is, and I invited Preston but he's not coming up from Manchester until the day after tomorrow."

The Garricks' home is a lot like anyone else's home, save for the framed series of newspaper headlines and portraits of Jay Garrick with a succession of political and cultural leaders -- Eisenhower, Ford, Elvises both young and fat. It smells like potpourri in here, and the furniture is covered in Bart-proof plastic.

"I see," Tim says carefully and Bart tosses him a big smile over his shoulder as he takes the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

"Green Lantern!"

"Excuse me?"

"That's who they're visiting. The first one, the *really* freaky one? He's got a weekend house somewhere. The Adirondacks? Probably."

"Oh." Tim usually doesn't feel the weight of the cape, the pressure of his mask, but in this eminently *normal* house, he feels for the first time in a long time like a freak. "That's nice?"

"Sure is! And not just for them, if you know what I mean." Bart bumps open a door with his hip and drags Tim inside. "This is my room!"

The chaos of Bart's room in the Tower is multiplied here, by many orders of magnitude. Tim can barely take it all in, banana peels and open encyclopedias, posters and an alto saxophone, a frilly cornflower-blue prom dress and what appears to be the entire contents of the nearest Post Office sorting facility.

"I wouldn't have guessed."

Bart sticks out his tongue. "So! Do you want to --" Pausing, he waggles his eyebrows and twitches his hips.

"I --" Tim peels off the mask and unlatches his cape. He feels caught in a teen-movie nightmare, invited for a sleepover by a -- *leering* Bart.

He blinks, and Bart is right in front of him, the floor and bed swept clear. One hand on Tim's hip, the other on his cheek, and Bart is breathing slowly against him. "I owe you."

"There's no --" Tim tips his head back when Bart kisses his neck, right where the cape closes.

"No owing, okay," Bart whispers and the ceiling tips over them, rights itself, and Tim finds himself on his back on the bed, Bart working open his tunic. "Um. Because I want to?"

That isn't good enough, either. Tim closes his eyes as Bart rolls his tights down and tugs off his boots. Bart circles Tim's ankles with his hands and just *holds* them for a moment.

"Bart?"

"Sssh."

His head falls back into the tangle of blankets as Bart's hands move up his shins, thumbs right along the bones, around his knees, up and further *up*.

"Man," Bart breathes when Tim's naked. His fingers trace patterns over Tim's chest, make Tim shiver despite himself. "Wish you could see yourself. It's like --"

Tim crosses one arm over his chest and tries to sit up. "It's just --"

Bart shakes his head vigorously. "Nope. It's --." He runs two knuckles down the length of Tim's dick and laughs, deep in his throat. "It's really *amazing*."

"Bart, I --" When Bart touches him again, Tim's body starts to jackknife, red daggers shooting under his skin, faster and faster. He turns his head, stares out the window, watches the curtains moving in the breeze. "You've seen me naked."

"Lots of times," Bart says, *cheerfully*, agreeably. Then his voice drops low, soft, enough to make Tim shut his eyes again. "Doesn't mean --"

 _Don't,_ Tim thinks he should say. The shape of the window glows against the back of his eyelids. _Just, please. *Don't*._

The object of that imperative is not important. Not nearly so much as the negative.

The sound of Bart sucking his fingers is -- wet. Wet and *noisy*, and then he touches Tim's balls with them, and Tim feels himself arch and *rise*.

"You've been hard this whole time?" Bart's voice is soft, but breaking a little, wondering. "Whoa."

"I --." Tim swallows, squeezes his eyes *more* shut, and nods. "Yes."

Respiration is becoming an issue. His chest is hollow, *stretched* out, and the pain of waiting, of so much tension, is warring in his groin with the sudden, jolting *pleasure* of Bart's weird, wandering little touches.

"Tim?" Bart wraps his fingers loosely around Tim's dick, and it hurts almost as much as it feels right. He gurgles a little, sitting up, pushing into Bart's grip, but it doesn't get any tighter. "Tim."

"I need --" To come, to go. "*Bart*, please."

And there's the surprise again, loosening Bart's expression, widening and brightening, and he kisses Tim with sharp, wide bites, tongues his mouth open and *pulls*. "You feel so good, Tim --"

Thank you? Tim pants raggedly against Bart's mouth, his neck, his ear, swiveling his hips and aching so much that his vision blurs. "Please --"

"*God*, look at --." Bart's holding his shoulder, holding him *here*, as he pulls and kisses and it's messy, off Tim's usual rhythm, unpredictable and wet against his mouth, dry and burning around his dick, and he shakes, shakes --. "You look so hot, I --"

There are streaks and blurs, skin and friction and *lips* everywhere, and when it clears, Tim's still about to come, but Bart's kneeling up to meet him, rubbing his dick against Tim's and sucking his mouth open, and farther open, until Tim's jaw cracks and he tastes sweat, and Bart, and the sudden rush of cold night air.

Tim feels himself *pivot*, thrust and yowl, and Bart pulls on him harder, gasps and rubs, his come splattering hot-then-burning-cold over Tim's thighs, his belly, his cock, and he's finally, *finally* coming with something a little like a groan and a lot like a bellow.

It hurts, and he's felt much, much worse in the distant *and* recent past -- his arm snapped under Kon's hand like balsa, like nothing -- but the rush of relief hurts far more than anything.

Tim rolls onto his side, hand on Bart's hip, and steadies his breathing. Until he can think again, until he can feel without wincing, he plans just to lie here, remain still, until --.

Bart is...playing with Tim's hair. It feels, oddly, *nice*. "You think he misses us?"

"Bart, I --"

"I miss him, though," Bart says. "I miss *you*."

"That's ridiculous." Tim bites his lip when Bart shakes his head, eyes round and shining. "I mean, I'm right here."

"Yeah, but --" Bart gives half a shrug. His lips look swollen; _I did that_ , Tim thinks, and his dick starts to twitch painfully. "Different."

He should ask how, but Tim has a policy of never asking questions to which he knows the answers.

Instead, he glances at the window, notes that it's still dark out, still cold, and runs his palm down the curve of Bart's hip, into the hollow before his ass. They stink with sweat and sex, and Bart squeaks a little when Tim pinches the top of one buttock.

"Do you --" Tim hauls himself closer, until he can't see clearly, until Bart's wrapping his arm around Tim's neck and opening his mouth to kiss. "You should fuck me."

Bart pounds his shoulder and laughs hard enough to dislodge Tim. Tears dot his eyelashes as he laughs, shaking his head. "You're kidding."

In reply, Tim rolls the rest of his way onto his stomach and pulls one knee up. He turns his head away from the window, toward Bart, and says, "No."

Bart's mouth works on empty air and his hair is dark with sweat, poking into his eyes, and his cheeks --. If Tim kissed his cheek right now, the skin there would be flaring hot, impossible not to bite.

"You want to, right?" Tim adds and Bart takes half an age, half a minute, to nod slowly.

Bart's touch down his spine is hesitant, glancing, nothing like his usual. Tim arches up to meet it, wiggling a little.

"Really?" Bart breathes.

"I don't kid," Tim says.

Bart's laugh is slightly choked as he presses his palm against the small of Tim's back. "True."

"I don't --" Tim can *see* the words he should be saying: _I don't want to hurt you, I don't want anyone else, I don't --_ but he cannot lie nearly so well as he can *omit*. "Please?"

Bart chokes on a giggle again. "I --. Have you? Ever?"

"Not with anyone else." Tim fans out his other leg, widening, then tilting, so Bart's hand slides farther down.

"Anyone --? *Oh*. Oh, *wow*." Bart's eyes are closing and there's a goofy smile on his lips and Tim can't bear to -- he has to -- know that Bart's *picturing* that. Bart's eyes flutter open and meet his. "Wow."

And then, like every decision Bart makes, everything happens in a rush, in banging against the walls and pillows tugged down and lube splashed across Tim's back from his ribs to his *knees*, and Bart's crouching behind him.

"I think you should --" He pokes at Tim's ass, pulls him up onto his knees, and holds him. "I should --"

"Finger first," Tim tells him. His voice sounds distant, cracked like a windowpane, rusty.

He has to stop himself from laughing at the thought of how *surprised*, how disbelieving, Wally West would be at how well Bart can take direction. But he does, he goes slow and *explores*, one finger and then two, breathing hard through his mouth, asking questions.

"More," Tim says and settles into the stretch, accepts the burn, butts back. "Bart, it's --"

"*Good*, so good," Bart says, scissoring his fingers and vibrating at a low rate, a hum that builds in Tim's spine and shoots down every bone in his body. "Really good, *oh*. Tim --"

"I think --. Are you ready?"

Bart doesn't answer, just wraps his arm around Tim's waist, pulls him all the way up, tongue on Tim's neck, teeth around his earlobe, as he wiggles and pushes and --. "Oh, *shit*."

He can only have, at most, the head of his dick inside, but Tim's body loosens, goes to rubber, for a moment before he snaps back, and then Bart's pushing, vibrating, stroking Tim's chest and digging his nails into one thigh.

"You can --"

"I *am*," Bart says, almost angrily, biting on Tim's shoulder, and there's a long moment where nothing but *fire* happens, the stretch and burn vanishing to a wall of heat. "I am, are you --?"

"Yeah," Tim says and falls onto his elbows. Balance is nothing, and Bart's moving *inside* him, doing something that fingers and mail-ordered dildos never, quite, approximated. "Yeah."

He pants, drools, into the mattress, feeling his knees give, the heat off Bart's skin sliding and sticking to his own, and then --. Nothing.

"Bart?"

There's another series of bangs, a breeze that lifts Tim's hair, and Bart returns, hand on Tim's shoulder, pushing him onto his back. "I want --" Bart kneels between his legs and takes a deep breath. "Want to *see* you."

"I --" Tim fights the urge to close his eyes.

"And," Bart says, rubbing his cock down Tim's crack, an eerie smile tilting across his mouth. "I know you --. You want to, too."

That's a mirror, a huge mirror, balanced precariously at the foot of the bed against the wall.

"Okay?" Tim tries, croaks, and tries again.

Bart's eyes are dark, his face set, and Tim feels heat, *pressure* again, a different angle, and he cannot look away, cannot breathe. Bart's *fucking* him and Tim is flopping against the motion, banging his head against the wall, rattling the mirror. It jumps and falls and jumps again, the image -- just two bodies, it's nothing, it's everything -- breaking up like a strobe's been turned on them.

"Look at me," Bart says. Asks? Not quite, and Tim does, can't *not*, as Bart takes hold of his dick and vibrates his hand around it. As he moves deeper, more raggedly. His face is flushed, a stain all the way down his chest, over his raw nipples, and he *groans* when Tim reaches up to touch one, then the other.

"I am," Tim says, because it's true. "Looking."

Bart is skinny. Bart is muscular, and lean, and his shoulders bow like something nautical when he runs. When he *fucks*, and he --.

"Tim, I --"

"Yes?"

Bart looks down and Tim's dick jumps in his hand. He bears down *on* Bart and gets a strangled little sound for his efforts. "I'm inside you."

"You are."

A spray of sweat when Bart swings his head back up. "Don't make fun of me."

"I --" Tim pushes himself up on one hand and feels the angle shift *again*, deeper and somehow wider. "Not."

Bart's got his hand in Tim's hair, yanking back his head, kissing his throat as he shoves and swivels inside, and he pants against Tim's shoulder. "I'm going to --"

"Good."

"Want you to. First."

Tim can't answer that. He eyes them in the mirror, the distorted tilt of Bart's body, the tension all down his back, down his spread legs.

"*You* come," Bart adds, tightening his hold on Tim's dick, buzzing hard, fast enough that he can't be made out in the mirror. His voice comes through clearly, slow and sure. "Want you to."

Tim lacks any rational explanation for why *that* particular comment should work. Should affect him like this. He suspects it's the vibration, it's the edge to Bart's voice, it's the drain of adrenaline. It could be anything as he falls back, as Bart pulls one leg over his shoulder, as kisses smear over his chest, as he folds in on himself and sees wide black sky, cloudless and *hot*, a flying figure silhouetted, and falls upward.

"*Tim* --" Bart's urgency travels into Tim, deeper than anything. "God, Tim, please --"

"Yes," he gets out, knotting his hold on whatever he can reach -- Bart's arm, the blankets, Bart's knee. He soars for a moment, then floats, and realizes that Bart needs this just as much as he does, that he wants this, and he tenses like crystal for an endless breath before he breaks and comes.

It's a rush, not so painful, a cascade of pieces he doubts he'll ever manage to gather again, and Bart's coming now, too, hot and sticky around his crack, and Tim --. Breathes.

Manages, for a while, simply to breathe. Bart is wrapped around him, hand in his hair.

Out the window, the horizon is lifting, lightening.

*

They don't say anything until much later. Until they've woken again, showered, raided Bart's closet for clothes to fit Tim. At the small table in the breakfast nook, Bart shovels cereal into his mouth while Tim slices his toast into eighths.

The mirror came from here, and it's been replaced on its hook crookedly.

"I know you don't want to talk about, you know. Kon and --" Bart shrugs and pours another load of cereal into the bowl. "But, see --"

Tim rolls his shoulders. Bart's old sweatshirt is a little snug across his chest.

"I miss him, too," Tim says. "But I don't think he --"

"Sure he does." Bart gestures with the spoon, and milk splashes the wall. He's getting that mulish look. "*Of course* he does, he has to."

Tim realized, sometime after coming but before waking up -- and subconscious decisions carry as much weight as the conscious do -- that if he didn't want to talk about -- about Kon, he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be around Bart.

It's only now, however, that he feels the force of that proposition. A slate to the chest, a buzzing in his ears, and he rises to get some paper towels.

"Are you walking funny?" Bart twists in his seat. "You're totally walking funny!"

"Maybe," Tim replies. "Maybe I am."


End file.
